Henry Farrell

“ The curtain on the left retreated from the performance and hung limp. Marc sighed a sigh of relief, only to catch his breath in a new convulsion of horror. The curtain on the right, not content with behaving like something human, had decided to look like something human as well. Actually, in the manner of a close fitting dress, the thing began to assume bumps and hollows of an extremely feminine and alarming nature. It was then, and only a moment before a flash of red hair showed around the edge of the curtain, that Marc realized the awful truth of the situation; Toffee had materialized. ”

“ In the grey coolness of the fashion salon, Toffee, Marc and Mr. Baker, the manager, sank into low, comfortable chairs and accepted the services of a dark, aloof young lady who brought them drinks in tall, cool glasses. An orchestra played muted background music as from a misted distance. All in all the salon was a den of pleasant relaxation.
Girls of all types and unparalleled beauty paraded constantly in the latest words from the fashion centers of the world. Some of the fashion designers, Toffee concluded approvingly, were given to very brief and suggestive words. ”

“ Marc opened his eyes and turned around, then started back with a gasp of surprise. Julie, the beauty who always walked in regal stateliness, whose every move and gesture was a masterpiece of living poetry, was suddenly squatting in the doorway, clutching at herself in a way which was not only ungainly but downright repellent.
For a long moment surprise rendered Marc totally incapable of action. Then with a burst of logic and simultaneous realization, he whirled in Toffee's direction. Suddenly, this whole shuddering situation was all too clear to him. ”

“ Marc turned to her, prepared to the last inflection to inform her that he would trust her only a little less farther than he could hurl a steam shovel with his bare teeth, but he did not speak. His gaze went to her left hand and remained there.
In all the time he had known her Marc had never seen Toffee wear even a single piece of jewelry: it was taken for granted that her charms were sufficient unto themselves without any superficial ornamentation. One might be silly enough to apply gilt to a lily, but never to a gold piece. ”

“ X Bomb—the bombs ticked louder and louder with the growing hours—and each man dwelt alone now with the dark spectre of his own trembling fear.
"Yesterday we perfected a new kind of totalitarian death...." (It was difficult to remember the pleasant, relaxed voice which had once given the announcer his popularity, for now it seemed that his breath passed over taut nerves rather than vocal cords. But no one noticed; it was only what he said that mattered now, not how he said it. Fear fed on fear with an avid, indiscriminate appetite—and flourished from the diet.) ”

“ Marc asked suspiciously.
"Nothing," Toffee said. She pulled herself closer, brushed her lips playfully across his cheek. "Absolutely nothing." She slipped her arm around his neck.
The next few seconds were characterized with quiet struggle as Marc disengaged himself from her determined embrace.
"Next time hold something back," he said confusedly. "There's just so much that human flesh and blood can stand, you know."
"And you have so little of either," Toffee said. She gazed at him reflectively. "Kissing you is like tying on your bib over a plate of bleached bones." ”

“ In the last few months things—the matters of men's lives—had somehow gotten themselves all turned around backwards. People had ceased to concern themselves with the really important things—fighting over a radio, for instance—and had turned to the childish business of blowing up the world.
Marc paused to sum up these thoughts. Somewhere they contained a very great and very simple truth, though they were all snarled up. Somehow his dislocated sacroiliac and the troubles of the world were subtly related....
The drowsiness washed over his mind again, and the thought was carried away on the crest. ”

“ Much like the sensation of stepping onto cool lawn after having walked barefoot on scorching concrete, pain was swiftly followed by almost unbearable pleasure.
Before Marc's gaze a soft greenness stretched away from him into graceful rising slopes and cool shadowed hollows—artfully like a display of green velvet in a shop window. On the rise of the most distant knoll stretched a forest of strange trees which held at once a cathedral of stateliness and a feathery pliability. ”

“ Toffee felt keenly that the moment called for a disarming smile.
"Don't be silly, boys," she said with arch modulation. "There's no occasion for manly demonstrations."
There was a sputtered, incoherent exchange between the two, interspersed with moments of silence which allowed them time to stare in open-mouthed wonderment at the lightly-swathed redhead before them. Toffee listened to this for what seemed the proper social interval, then started determinedly forward. The bayonets, however, thrust a little closer, took all the verve and sweep out of the gesture. ”

“ Toffee said. She turned to Marc. "Isn't it nice to meet a girl who knows her own mind—even when it's cracked seven ways to Sunday?"
"You should know," Marc glowered. "You should damned well know, you little heller."
Congressman Bloodsop's study was a mammoth vault paneled solidly with the finest oak that purloined money could buy. It was vast-ceilinged and set solidly at one end with leaded windows of a thousand panes. Beyond the windows, like a magazine illustration, one could see formal gardens softened with twilight. To Toffee's mind it fairly stank with class. ”

“ Toffee said. "They're just a bunch of harmless children."
"So harmless," Marc snorted, "they've danced the whole nation right down the path to extinction."
"Oh, that," Toffee said, smiling secretively. "I wouldn't worry about that. I wouldn't waste the time."
"Oh, you wouldn't, wouldn't you?" Marc said annoyedly. "Well, let me remind you, Miss Cotton Brain, that you're subject to the laws of extinction just as much as the rest of us. When I die you go with me, you know, and after the way you've messed up my final hours I will consider it a pleasure to perish just to get even with you. ”

“ Marc sighed. "Come on, let's leave."
"Certainly not," Toffee said. "I have other business to take care of."
"Oh, no!" Marc cried, and slumped exhaustedly into his chair. "I'm too tired for any more!"
"We must realize," the Chair was saying, "that an opportunity has been placed in our hands. The enemy is helpless. Now is the time to strike!"
There was a pause while this sank in, and then the cheering and rough-housing began again with greater vigor.
"Rickety-rax!" One vaporish congressman giggled, slipping limply from his chair to the floor. "Rickety-rax! Give 'em the axe!" ”

“ She considered her ring and the hoard of armed brutes around her; there were too many of them to deal with effectively. The situation called for help, and Toffee took her cue from the situation; though she didn't know the language she was willing to kick it around a bit.
"Helpovitch!" she yelled at the top of her lungs. "Helpovitch!"
The result that followed was as instantaneous as it was unexpected. No sooner had Toffee's voice split the air of the hallway than the guards froze where they were and stared at her in a transfix of horror. ”

“ Marc said. "At least it proves that a well-placed jolt in the right place is a lot more powerful than any bomb. I was right in the first place. When warfare gets personal it loses its attraction. I suppose they'll be busy developing more and worse bombs as soon as the shock wears off, but at least the people in the world will have another chance to try and prevent them."
Toffee shrugged lightly. "It just goes to show that world politics are really childishly simple when someone comes along with a firm hand." ”

“ Marc Pillsworth, startled at the sudden silence, snapped forward in his chair and looked up. Julie, the lamp light slanting sharply across her face, glared down at him with tense irritation. She removed her hand significantly from the radio switch.
"I'm telling you, Marcus Pillsworth," she said menacingly, "I can't stand any more of it. If you turn on that bloody instrument again—if you so much as twitch your bony finger in its direction—one of us is going to die of unnatural causes, and you may have read that the female is notoriously more long-lived than the male." ”

“ Marc met her gaze for a moment and momentarily declined the challenge. "I suppose you just want to sit here and never know what hit you?"
"Exactly," Julie said. "For heaven's sake what does it matter what hits us after we're dead? At least I don't want to sit here chewing my nails while some morbid-minded deficient drives me into a state of complete nervous collapse." ”

“ Toffee, curve-some as a serpent and twice as fleshy, had stepped from behind the curtains and, at the moment, had arranged herself into a posture of highly seductive nature. This, judging by her expression, she considered humorous in the extreme. Not so, Marc.
"No!" he cried. "Stop!"
Julie did not bother to turn around; she merely stopped where she was in the doorway and placed her hands carefully on her hips. "Oh, no!" she groaned. "I've married a man who fancies himself a traffic signal!"
"No!" Marc yelled. "Not you!"
"Then who?" Julie asked with threadbare patience. ”

“ Marc stared at her incredulously through the chill dimness of the living room. Then he sighed heavily. This also was the nature of human terror: every man was married to a shrew these days. Women simply weren't up to it.
But Julie had been better than most—until now. ”

“ Toffee, aware that important persons required her best efforts, added a shot to the President's neck, having already administered to the more logical location.
President Flemm's fine tenor assailed the air with ear-splitting clarity, as his companions edged away in terror. Clutching alternately at his neck and his rear, the man leaped about like a fan dancer deprived of her feathers before a meeting of young business executives. The President gave the performance of a man who was torn in his very soul. ”

“ The rush for the aisle was instantaneous and enthusiastic. As the playful congressmen lined up for the game, Toffee leaped to the top of the table and assumed a firing stance. Taking careful aim as the first gamester wheezed up the aisle and boosted himself aloft over the back of his suffering brother, she executed a neat wing shot which dropped her victim into place with a convulsion of shocked pain.
"Fish in a barrel," Toffee said gleefully.
"Good," Marc said, coming momentarily awake. "There! Get that gaffer on the rise!" ”

“ The cause of his predicament, a large, athletic, sharp-featured female, wearing tortoise shell glasses and tennis shorts, stalked him from behind a teepee. She was carrying a baseball bat, and a mad light glittered in her eyes. It would have been apparent to even a retarded child with a disturbed psyche that the young man's chances were slim.
As Toffee and Marc watched, the young lady with the glasses leered evilly from around the edge of the teepee and flourished her bat in a few practice swipes. ”

“ From the depths of her leather-covered chair, she lowered her coffee cup to the table and observed the spectacle of Congressman Bloodsop sitting like a high magistrate behind a kennel-sized mahogany desk.
"Do the guards have to stay outside in the hallway?" she asked. "Won't they be lonesome?"
"A matter of form, dear," the congressman said. "Looks good. Besides, I've told the maid to give them tea."
Marc standing beside the fireplace stirred with agitation. "Mr. Bloodsop...!"
The congressman raised his eyes with slow patience. "Young man," he said evenly. ”

“ And if those men had just come from the building, life must exist inside the place in spite of appearances.
She had no more than set foot on the steps of the place, however, than life suddenly descended upon her in a rush; two grey-uniformed guards, seemingly patterned very closely on the physical and spiritual makeup of the gorilla, clumped down the steps toward her with bayonets fixed. One of them barked something that, to Toffee, had no specific meaning. The bayonets, pointing in the vicinity of her mid-section, spoke with great eloquence. ”

“ Marc said. "She'll kill him with love."
"I can't help admiring her frank, forthright manner," Toffee said. "And you can't deny that her intentions are almost too honorable. But I can see where a man might consider her undainty, especially the choosy kind." Marc started forward, but she reached out a hand and drew him back. ”

“ Marc shook his head sadly, but Toffee, huddled beside him in one of his topcoats, saw a certain charm in the sketch.
"Personally," she said, "I like to see folks growing old disgracefully. It makes the inevitability of age more attractive. After a lifetime of perfecting sins and vices you ought to be able to take them with you at least as far as the grave."
Passing by this bit of lopsided philosophy, Marc wheeled the car onto the sidewalk and skirted the field of play. ”

“ To accomplish this end he had only to stay awake so that Toffee could not put in an untimely appearance—no mean accomplishment considering the sleeping tablets fermenting in his system. Now he contributed to the congressional activities with a resonant snore.
"And do you persist, Mr. Pillsworth, in the absurd assertion that you did not aid in the escape of the young woman known as Toffee? Mr. Pillsworth!"
Marc stirred and opened his eyes as his name penetrated his awareness. ”

“ Just keep up the good work, Miss Winters, and we'll be out of business in no time at all." As he turned away he smiled broadly at Marc and Toffee. "The sooner we unload all this junk the sooner we can close up and await the end with composure. As a matter of fact the advertising department has devised a little slogan: Steal at the Empire Before you Roast in Hellfire! Clever, eh?"
"Frightfully," Toffee said, "in the strictest sense of the word."
"Good grief," Marc said. "They're so used to the idea of dying, they're getting flip about it." ”

“ Toffee said. "Suppose I call those guards back in here and let them see you like this? In no time at all the news will get around that the Great Leader has gone off his rocker and is snapping at his own bottom like a beagle after ham hock. A fine laughing stock you'll make, won't you?" ”